Kirk Langstrom
FRANCINE!!!!
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NYCC 08: DAMN DIRTY SKRULLS: SPIDER-MAN
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by Vaneta Rogers
As announced by Marvel Comics at New York Comic Con this weekend, Brian Reed will be writing Secret Invasion: Spider-Man, a three-issue mini-series starting in August that focuses on how the cast of Amazing Spider-Man's "Brand New Day" is dealing with the onslaught of Skrulls.
Reed isn't new to Skrull stories, having just wrapped up the Skrull-filled Captain Marvel mini-series and writing tie-ins for his Ms. Marvel ongoing, as well as being named as the writer of the upcoming Secret Invasion: Front Line mini-series.
Newsarama talked to Reed to get the scoop on the new Spider-Man-centered mini-series.
Newsarama: First off Brian, how did you get on this project? And why did you want to do it?
Brian Reed: Well, I wanted to do it because, you know, it's Spider-Man! But I've been working with Steve Wacker, who is the editor of the Spider-Man books, because he's the editor on Ms. Marvel and Captain Marvel. And I had actually written an inventory story for Spider-Man late last year -- something they can have on the shelf if Amazing goes off schedule a little bit. And he really liked that. And the more we were working on Captain Marvel together, we kept talking about how I wanted to work on Spider-Man and he wanted me to work on Spider-Man. But the Spidey brain trust is locked up at the moment. And he said, you know what? We've got this Secret Invasion thing coming up, so let's cook up something to do with it.
NRAMA: And you're so good with Skrulls anyway, right?
BR: [laughs] We've been known to hang out.
NRAMA: Did you come up with the story for this? Or was it something that editorial had in mind and you just have to follow the beats in your story?
BR: The gist of what Steve brought to me was, "Let's focus on the cast of Brand New Day. Let's let Jackpot be the big superhero in this because Spidey is off in the Savage Land. And let's really take this as a chance to integrate all of them into the rest of the Marvel Universe, because we just haven't had that yet. We haven't seen it yet.
And from there, I wrote a treatment completely in the dark of what they were doing in Amazing. And then once that treatment was together, it came back and had notes from Dan Slott saying, "Hey, you can elaborate on this, but you can leave this alone." And by the end of it, I knew everything that was going on in Amazing and I changed the treatment to make it work.
NRAMA: You've written Spider-Man before in video games, so you know this character pretty well, right?
BR: Yep. Ultimate Spider-Man games, Spider-Man: Friend or Foe -- I've got a few Spider-Man games under my belt.
NRAMA: But it sounds like he's not playing as big of a role in this if he's off in the Savage Land.
BR: Well, he's in it, and it was a lot of fun figuring out how to get him in it and make him relevant to what's going on while not screwing up continuity, because he is off in the Savage Land with the Avengers. And getting those two things to synch up and make sense and work was a big part of the plot.
NRAMA: Tell us about Jackpot.
BR: She's the one that everybody thinks is Mary Jane. So a big part of it is getting to explore how she behaves as a superhero, because in the Spider-Man books, she's always been second fiddle, so now we get to see her front and center for a little bit. We get to see her and the staff of the DB as they deal with Skrulls falling out of the sky.
NRAMA: So it's going to involve quite a few characters?
BR: It's going to involve absolutely as many of the Brand New Day characters as I can fit in my 66 pages. [laughs]
NRAMA: Well, what is their reaction to the Skrulls?
BR: For quite a few of them, it's: "Let's run now!" But for Jackpot, it's this chance to shine. It's here's the big superhero moment and I have these people I have to protect. It's grabbing hold of that big action-adventure Spider-Man vibe and running with it.
It's hilarious because I'm writing Front Line, which is this deadly serious, "Oh no we're all going to die. How will we survive?" And yet Jackpot is, "Woo woo! Skrulls!"
NRAMA: So you're looking at the Skrulls from the point of view of just about everyone in all the different comics you're writing.
BR: I'm covering pretty much every corner, yeah.
NRAMA: To finish up, any hints about something big that is revealed in this story?
BR: In issue #1, we reveal that Spider-Man is a Skrull.
NRAMA: [laughs] Yeah.
BR: You laugh... but there's a full-page splash!
